Saturday - March 16, 2013 at 7pm

We're in Eliot, Maine's mecca for Olympic weighlifting... We're blasting off with Astronaut Rick Hauck, a Maine resident who flew three missions on the Space Shuttle... We'll look back on "The Ferryman," Steve Longley who paddled hikers across the Kennebec... And we'll learn about the Grand Trunk Railroad which left an indelible mark on Maine.

Bill's Blog:

Show 2013-5

This week on Bill Green's Maine, we head down to Elliot to meet an interesting couple that may be the state leaders in weightlifting. Ivan Rojas and his wife Gwen Cisto have a company called Risto Sports that trains lifters and sells equipment, including a highly reviewed weightlifting shoe.
To learn more about Risto Sports

http://www.ristosports.com/

Oh, baby, did I love this next piece. I'm talking to this guy at the symphony and as we talk, I get thinking more and more that this guy is pretty cool. I asked him what his occupation had been and he said, "I was an astronaut." His name is Rick Hauck and he's been living in Maine about five years. We got together to talk about his three shuttle missions. This is his astronaut biography from NASA:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/hauck-fh.html

The whole outdoor community was sad when Steve Longley passed away. Steve ran a rafting company called Rivers and Trails. He was also employed by the Appalachian Trail people to ferry people across the Kennebec River. Each day he would sit on river's edge and wait for through hikers. In 20 years, he paddled more than 19,000 people across the Kennebec River. Steve passed away of a heart attack at the age of 55. This is a piece we did on Steve back in 2004.

The Grand Trunk Railroad was extremely important to Maine. How the railroad happened to come here is a wonderful and often overlooked tale from our past. It's also interesting that the President of the railroad was lost on the Titanic.
For more information, click here:
http://www.sullboat.com/GT.htm